Marketing departments run a constant race to reach customers. In our age of instant communication, valuable customers are bombarded with messages. To keep your product or service at the forefront of their minds, you message must cut through all this clutter.

Yet a message merely reaching customers just isn’t enough. It must also be relevant to that individual client. It must arrive at the right time. It must be engaging and get to the heart of the customer’s needs right away. Achieving these objectives has never been easy, but that’s why marketing departments were invented. Armed with an effective customer relationship management system, they can boost marketing and sales.

1. A CRM Turns Stored Information into Revenue

Every business stores vast amounts of customer data. This includes order histories, communications, quotations, names, email addresses, payment histories, inquires, interests, and preferences. This data, used properly, is worth money.

However, many businesses fail to utilize this potential. The information lays dormant and accounts cease to grow because of a lack in customer communication. A new product is released, but customers buy from a competitor because they didn’t know. Prices are reduced, but customers assume the old price still stands. A customer’s sales representative leaves for a competitor, and no one from the company ever calls them again.

All of these revenue decreasing circumstances can be avoided by using the data in a CRM system to create customer contact plans, which means revenue growth.

2. Making Targeted Communications Possible

A customer relationship management system makes targeted, effective marketing communications possible by making these key data points available to a marketing team. It integrates this information in ways that help them build marketing campaigns.

There is no sense promoting a new product to a customer who will never need it. That improved widget or great new service needs to be known to the segment of customers interested in buying it. Customer relationship software provides clues as to which customers are potential purchasers. Those in that pool then receive a message targeted to them, a message they will pay attention to.

3. Timing of Communication Made Easy

With good customer management software, marketing teams are able to plan communications for the right time. These systems are full of information about when customers historically need a product, service, quotation, or a billing reminder. Marketing teams can use this data to decide when sending a communication is most effective.

4. They Provide Measurability and Accountability

CRM reports quantify marketing and sales efforts. To judge a marketing campaign’s success, managers must know its impact on sales. Good customer-management software provides reports that illustrate success and areas of weakness.

It also holds employees accountable. Are quotations being promptly created? Are salespeople following up with customers? Is production preparing orders on schedule? Customer management software shows when employees are doing their jobs, and when they need a reminder.